softly now: i think praying over food makes it tastier and more filling.
softly now: i think keeping the sabbath the week more productive and easier to deal with
softly now: i want to do more traditional jewish stuff because i think it makes life more interesting
shaunxglisten: its fun to hear you talk about it
shaunxglisten: interesting
softly now: it's fun to talk about!
softly now: being jewish is a party!
softly now: lol
3:25 PM
shaunxglisten: HAH
softly now: a lot of my friends have said that knowing me makes them want to convert
softly now: i make this shit look gooood
softly now: hahaha
shaunxglisten: hahahaha
softly now: really though i love it. it's social justice and personal reflection all rolled into one
softly now: and then baked until crispy
softly now: mmmm knishes.

I just read Mobius' post from whenever about a personified God vs. a pantheistic view. While I agree on the pantheism thing, If there were a personified version of God I think God would play some jokes on us. Maybe the masturbation prohibition is not to be taken at face value?

I had a class last semester at Oberlin with our German writer-in-residence Katja Lange-Mueller. One of the pieces of hers we read was a story about a student studying martial arts and mediation with his master.
One day the master presented the student with a bottle, inside of which was a live duck. The master demanded that the student explain how the duck got in the bottle. The student was at a loss to explain and the master beat him severely for it. The next day the master presented the same bottle with the same question. The student scrambled to think of something, suggesting that perhaps the glassblower had blown the bottle around the duck. The master said he had guessed wrong and beat him severly again. This scenario repeated itself twice more before, on the fifth day, the student decided that his master must have gone mad. When demaded for an explanation of the duck in the bottle, he announced that he was leaving, although the master had been good to him for many years he was now afraid that he had taken leave of his senses and couldn't subject himself to it any longer.
The master began to cry and embraced his student, telling him how glad he was that he had finally learned this valuable lesson, and how difficult it had been for him to be so harsh with the student. He had put the student through senseless questions and beatings to teach him never to blindly accept something so clearly fraught with madness just because the perpetrator was his "master".

v'ho-ikor lo l'fachayd. k'lol

This NewZionist post about the greenhouses left behind after the disengagement is great because the positive aspects of the Palestinian side of things get practically no press most of the time while unfounded vicious rumors about their capacity for destriction are accepted as fact in the mainstream on a regular basis. All of history is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Matisyahu @ Kalkscheune

I am going to attempt to write a review of Matisyahu's Berlin show in Kalkscheune without gushing. I don't know if I can though, so be warned.

First of all I had never been to Kalkscheune. It's behind the Kunstlerhaus, which is my favorite place ever in the world. It's pretty small, with a nice intimate feel but some annoying pillars in the way. They make a good, strong gin and tonic there.

The crowd was a mix of German reggae fans who didn't really know what was on the bill for the night and Jews from all over. I saw Davidstern tee-shirts, Hebrew college sweatshirts, tzitzit emerging from bowling shirts and all that jazz. I felt like I was at Oberlin, actually.

The set was great. He only played a few songs off "Shake off the dust... Arise." There was a lot of beatboxing and such. It was fantastic. I was dancing all over the place. I was so into it. At one point (I think it was during "Got No Water") I remember thinking, "G-d is in this room." (I don't normally write god with a dash or even capitalized, but that's what I was thinking at the moment.)

Then came the encore performace. I seriously regret having drank so much before this point because I can't remember exactly what it was he said, but I was totally bowled over by the spiel (song? speech?) he gave about the Schoa not preventing him from being there and not preventing us from being there and the only verbatim quote I remember is "but it couldn't choke me!" (Does anybody know if this was pre-written or freestyled? If he improv'ed that then I'm afraid I might succumb to idolatry and worship him. (oh the irony)

By the time he got to that part I was crying my face off, alternately attempting to continue dancing and standing like I had a pole stuck through me. Max, the non-Jewish Berliner whom I had just met, was standing there looking kind of panic-stricken by my reaction, which I thought was kind of cute.

I was really surprised that, from what I could tell, the rest of the audience wasn't really having the same reaction I was. I felt kind of embarrassed when I realized that but then I thought oh fuck it and went with it. Maybe it was good I had those drinks after all. Maybe other people on the other side of the annoying pillar were doing the same thing. I wasn't really paying all that much attention to what other people were doing by then.

Afterwards I felt like I had just run a marathon, and Max and I headed to the Kunstlerhaus to sit in the rocket and talk about spiders. I am still, a week later, in a daze. It was totally worth the 15 hours of travel time to and from Berlin and the 100 euro it ended up costing to get there and back.